Is THIS the Trickiest METALLICA Riff? (might surprise you)
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- Опубликовано: 2 сен 2022
- -Is THIS the Trickiest METALLICA Riff? (might surprise you)
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Blackened is a tricky son of a gun, and don’t forget the fact that after a few tries it drains your stamina and you think your arm is going to fall off
Blackened is the end... of your arm xD
@@Iximity never will it mend 😉
I don't know why but I can downpick blitzkrieg and creeping death at around 215 - 220 bpm without much problem but with blackened I can barely keep up with the original at 195
@@marcinmcula99 that’s because it has that really fast single string skipping. Also, the tail is really complicated on its own already, and now add having to slide 7 whole frets without missing a beat before doing it
Yeah this was my thought
A friend of mine saw Metallica for the Ride the Lightning tour when he was stationed in Germany. After the show he went to a bar and Metallica ended up showing up there too. He said they were all cool and approachable, so he asked James why they didn't play "Jump in the Fire" and James said, "Oh man, that one is such a pain in the ass to play. We aren't always in the mood to play that one".
I believe that's one of Dave Mustaine songs.
@@cc771 no material outside of kill em all is written by mustaine
Jump in the fire was on Kill em All
@@doinyamaam3677 jump in the fire is on kill em all dummy
Just because it’s the Ride the Lightning tour doesn’t mean they only play songs from Ride the Lighting. 🤣
Metallica doesn't really sound that hard until you actually try to play them up to speed. Then you notice things like this that give you a new appreciation. I also found the Battery and Master of Puppets main riffs to be really tricky to play at speed. They require you to train your brain and override your instincts.
Imagine trying to sing and play these at speed. Het is amazing.
Yes Battery definitely. It's very difficult to play accurately at speed.
@@paultrottier2860 I think he was just blessed with amazing coordination by the gods. In his guitar center interview he made it sound like he hadn’t even been playing guitar for long at all when he joined leather charm and then met.
I played Master alt picked forever and I could do it, it just never sounded as powerful as when it's all down picked. So I committed to learning it down picking. And man 25 years in I still get wiped out from that song!
Blackened opening riff is by far their toughest riff. It is proper tricksy to get right and took my 14 year old self hours of practice to get it right.
From what I've heard the hardest one is "Some kind of monster"... you know, those notes in between... ;)
Yeah they are really fucking with me
'Zat rite?
Those in-between notes really fuck with you.
You're sweatin'.
No kiddin' I'm sweating
I think the hardest one is in Frayed Ends that mid bridge part at about 4 minutes with them gallops on the low E and then that e-d-e on the A string. Picking is insane there, guaranteed to trip you up.
I (finally) nailed it a few months ago note for note - However without playing for a few months since, I would have to work back up to it again.
If you don't use it, you lose it! :-)
Not triplets but gallops. Frayed ends has a bunch of really trippy riffs like the solo one, but the riff after the solo that also plays at the end is so fun
It's gallops
I had that riff in my mind the whole time watching this video
@@WoockerSocket2 oh hey, I've seen your skits. You're pretty good at this, seriously. I hope you have a good day today
Master of Puppets, getting the downpicking up to speed, along with all the stamina for playing the full song, is quite tricky.
For real. Not that this song is easy, but once you can play Master or Damage Inc, it's not too difficult anymore.
I thought this was going to be about the Creeping Death main riff. Because although the riff is not difficult in the sense of knowing the chords and notes, playing it correctly up to speed is something that a lot of people don't realize how hard it is until they try it.
Once I locked into that riff I was impressed with myself!
The Damage Inc bridge riff was definitely what I thought this video was about haha. It’s like a tongue twister, but in guitar form. One of my favorite riffs of theirs to play once you sort it out though!
Same! I started learning it last week I was like « holy shit » 😭🤣
It’s kind of amazing, I was learning Damage Inc a few weeks ago and had that riff down pat in like 10 minutes. And I am still intermediate, so reading everyone having so much trouble with it, i thought I had suddenly morphed into a genius lmao (I haven’t)
@@der_jannik_0115 do you have any of their songs that you would recommend learning when you are first getting into playing metallica? I’ve been playing for almost two years and want to start playing metallica but most of their songs are way too difficult so I’m not sure where to start
I think the verse riff is harder actually. The way it goes from the power chord down-slide to the 1-1-1 gallop I've always found awkward
@@greghernandez1765 Seek and Destroy is a great one to start with for an easier and fun one to play. There is a video of it on this channel. Check it out.
For me disposable heroes pre chorus riff, I find it very hard to get the tight 16th note tremolo and the pull off. Also James' riff under the solo for frayed ends of sanity is pure madness
Interesting is that this riff was written by Kirk
You could say it's INsanity 🤔
@@MBBGun14 frayed or disposable?
Man it took me so many years of practicing to be able to play disposable heroes at speed and even then my arm gets sore as hell and sometime I need to just let a note or 2 ring so my arm can rest 😭
@@zuckleyplays4120 i dunno, both equally difficult
Dave is a musical genius I didn't realise that the chords used in ktulu is the same arrangement as hangar 18
Dunno if I’d go that far but a big part of Metallica’s genius has always been masking their influences well.
Ktulu was written 4 years before Hangar
The bridge riff leading to the guitar solo in The Frayed Ends of Sanity is nuts
I've always thought blackened was their toughest. At pace, downpicking, confused first beat, odd meter. I can play it but no where near the speed that they do. Not sure I'll ever be able to
i think if you really want to, then it's gonna take a lot of downpicking to get used to
But after a little practise, alternate picking both parts of the first riff and the second riff is actually quite easy and doesn't sound any different
That's because of the changing time signature throughout the song. The intro is 5/4 time and 4/4 time bridged with two bars and then 4/4 during the verses, chorus, and the bridge/breakdown. Once you become more familiar with the song, you'll have less trouble, no doubt.
@540マンモス Alt picking does sound weaker, though.
The trickiest Metallica riff for me has to be the bridge riff in My Apocalypse, downpicking that with the gradual pinch harmonics being added and slightly increasing the speed once the rest of the band kicks in has always messed me up, I can breeze through Dyers Eve or Blackened but have rarely ever gotten the middle part of My Apocalypse right with weeks and weeks of practice
Yup its tricky as fuck I mess it up always
Underrated song too.
It's one of the few riffs that I have never played correctly, and I've been trying since the day the album came out. Lol
This was my answer too, the fingering is really awkward, and even after I get it down it just doesn't seem to settle in my muscle memory, it always FEELS wrong
Kirk has this thing about writing complex riffs, same with the one in the middle of Damage inc. as well.
I like how the Kill'em All has a lot of Mustaine's influence. Metal Militia riff sounds very "Megadethish".... and I thought the hardest Metallica riff was gonna be Nothing Else Matters intro haha
The first time he plays it at ~3:30 it's almost a dead ringer for Poison Was the Cure, just dumbed way down
lol, love the hammet burn
Tbh with nothing else matters, the problem is that it's so out of character if you've spent most of your time learning their thrash material, so if you have spent most of the time playing like *riffs* riffs, then yeah it's gonna be super hard to get down. For me, I learned quite a wide variety of songs in just about every genre so I felt it wasn't too bad to learn, but I totally understand why it'd be difficult for a metalhead cuz it just doesn't utilize the same kind of techniques or style that any of their prior material did.
THIS.
That damned time change riff in Orion is what always killed me. But drummers are who struggle with it most. If a band can pull it off, it took lots of practice!!
I agree
Definitely more tricky than the examples in this video.
Easiest song I've ever had a full band learn. First Metallica song I learned. Hell, first full song I learned. Playing it has always seemed second... fuckin first nature for me.
"That damned time change riff in Orion" - a can hear no time change for guitar there - you just repeat the same. There is a change for drums that makes you think about guitar changes.
There's no time change in Orion, that pattern is made simply by moving accents around and that what throws some people off. It stays in 4/4 the entire time. Do drummers really struggle with it? I played Orion a lot both on drums and bass and didnt really struggle to understand it rhythmically
Lotta votes for Blackened but at least for me it's not so much tricky as it is (much like MoP) way hard to have the stamina to keep the riff going. That being said, Blackened could have easily replaced any of the riffs I played as my first 3 examples.
I never struggled with the metal militia verse unironically .. i struggled with blackened and damage
blackened is hard when you don't know how to count as a beginner, we all struggled.
I knew it was gonna be metal militia, that quick jump from the chords back to the start of the riff has always given me problems. It just seems that even once you master it, don’t touch it for a few months and it’s back to square one… haha
30th anniversary was with Mustaine
I think Blackened is hard for it's own reasons, not so much tricky but like several other metallica songs of that era, the sheer stamina you need to play it through at speed is just off the charts. Hetfield and Mustaine were both animals.
It's always been Fight Fire With Fire for me. If I skip the little gallops in between power chords (like they do live) I can do it, but I just can't get it up to speed otherwise 😬
Same here
There's a live version from 1986 where it's about 30bpm faster than usual, it's insane how quick it is
I think they're not exactly gallops, rather just straight 16th überfast notes.
Yes! still cant get it right.
@@Union.Of.The.666 Screw that 😂
The triplets in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" Doesn't seem that complicated, but doing it at speed always trips me up!
Same! Even when I play it at the correct tempo with a metronome, I'm like "alright, I got this." Then I play along to the song or a backing track and I'm like "wait, what?"
The verse riff is hard because the timing
@@dillonbrown8528 That long power chords part?
Agreed
Yes! So far, no matter how close...
I'll guess the middle riff from Frayed Ends of Sanity as I once saw Hetfield give that as his answer when asked for their hardest riff. Personally, I've always found the Damage Inc riff in this video the hardest to play up to speed.
Yeah the fast triplets on that kill me
I was going to say the middle part for Ride the Lightning is pretty tricky, especially if you don't know how to do Dave Mustaine's Spider-chord technique! That being said, those tricky riffs (when you do learn them) make the song that much more energetic and fun to play!
I find it interesting how people have an easier or harder time with different riffs. Like with me, I had an easy time learning that Damage, Inc. riff but the one riff that I still cannot get down after all these years is that intro/verse riff from Hit the Lights.
Hit the Lights was pretty easy for me, the trick is getting to the point where it isn't sloppy, cause it is really easy to turn it into note soup if your alternate picking isn't precise enough.
Took me some time but I got the HTL riff down, what a cool riff!!
I can’t do the hit the lights riff for shit
Brilliant, FUCKING BRILLIANT God damned name, dude. Would you sell it? (Don't ask me why.)
They all have a little mental trick and once you get it you are good
Blackened (*the* riff)
Frayed Ends Of Sanity (pre-solo riff-fest)
Battery (main/verse riff...I've *never* been able to get it to feel right)
For good measure: favorite post-Black Album riffs - Spit Out The Bone (the second riff; the one with the chugging and decending thirds), Prince Charming (intro/chorus), The Day That Never Comes (the 0h5h8 riff in the fast section)
Metal Militia wouldn't have been my first guess. I just pick it with downstrokes more like Blackened, without the sweeping through the A string. Then again I'm just not very good with alternate picking, so I learned to get it up to speed similar to the alternate picking method but with down strokes.
The trickiest metallica riff is a dave mustaine riff, the irony.
I definitely agree with you about that Metal Militia riff, it's just weird and I was trying to catch up to speed but I failed few times, so I decided to just skip it for some time. Now after this video I'm gonna try to learn it. Thank You Mike. Keep rockin' dude.
Fast bridge riff from The Frayed Ends Of Sanity, that starts about 4:04 is the most trickiest part on Justice album.
And if you wanna keep it as tight and hit all gallops then it's hands down the most difficult riff to play.
I had the same riff in mind.
Excellent video. Thank you!
That first riff from Damage is my favorite Metallica riff ever. I never was able to play it from the (bad old) tabbook but finally learned it (pretty quick) from a great tutorial from Uncle Ben.
Dude this was wonderfully entertaining, thanks so much. Killer playing 🦈
My guess is Blackened. You have bounce between muting the low E, to not muting the 7th on the A string, even adding the 9th (8th fret A) and the tritone (8th fret D), as well as the little da dun dun dun dududun dun. The fact it's all downpicked, while harder on the picking hand, gives me a bit of an easier time because I cannot cleanly move strings when alt-picking to save my life.
Well done.Very informative!
I thought you would mention the upsidedown verse riff in Fight Fire with Fire - starting it always messes me up, plus the insanely fast tempo. The other one is the riff under Kirk's solo in Frayed Ends of Sanity - what happens there is worth a book
Lords of Summer main riff also comes to my mind. String skipping combined with galloping makes it hard for me both in terms of precision and stamina
I was sure this video was gonna be about that riff from "Fight Fire With Fire" and was surprised by Metal Militia but you're totally right, it's a tricky one, too. Fun video. 🤘🏼
Amazing play and tone!!!
I don’t know how James manages to sing and play that Metal Militia riff at the same time.
Gotta be the some kind of monster intro... "It's the notes in-between that are fucking with me"!! 😂😂
Now this surprised me. I always liked playing the metal militia riff, even though I did without the A string like you just because it sounded clearer that way. I liked how all over the place and full of energy it was.
actually the original version of "Hit The Lights" was on the Metal Massacre compilation in 1982 before Dave joined the band (the guitarist that performed the song at the time was Lloyd Grant, who I believe was only used for that recording). it does sound like a Dave riff though as far as the riff's style and sound goes, so maybe it stuck to him lol...
I'd would still argue that the "Fight Fire With Fire" riff you showed is still tougher because of the timing of how it's played, and I've seen so many youtuber "guitarists" screw that riff up in their recorded videos. It's like the one riff that only the pros can play apparently.
Lulu is tricky to play because I only heard the album once and threw it away.
🤘🏻🔥 congrats on 741K Subscribers!
That's a lotta subscribers. I'd say he desrves it- hell, he desrves millions of subscribers.
@@teresathomley3703 absolutely.
I genuinely thought it was blackened I was surprised when you played metal militia because I never noticed the upstrokes on metal militia so I’m very happy you notified that because now I’ll definitely have to change my picking otter for metal militia so thank you!
great guitar - great playing. Respect \m/
Its just gotta be the middle part 4min into Frayed ends (the 7-5-7 with the open E gallop). Not much else comes to mind immedietely.
My guess was the main clean riff for Unforgiven II. Getting those bends on the B string to sound clean without a B-bender guitar is nearly impossible
Bravo 👏 👏! I always hit with downstrokes muting the A then D unmuted
When I saw the title, I immediately thought of the Fight Fire w/ Fire riff.
Then when you mentioned the Metal Militia riff I was like, "Of course!". That one always screwed with me, and I'd lose the timing.
Great vid!
Another tricky one is when the main riff comes back in after the solo in Blackened, and the timing changes twice. Its a mindfuck and its hard to stay in time even though you dont actually play the riff any differently, it just feels super weird because of how the beat changes under the riff
This. It’s like the band drops out from under you for a sec, and then comes right back. Even though I know it’s about to happen, I’m still never prepped for it when it does 😅
Cliffs riff (correct me if I’m wrong on that) from near the end of Master of Puppets is super annoying to play, the scale based one with the little triplet.
I can play Fight Fire With Fire all day, and I find this one pretty intuitive, but that MoP riff is too finicky at full speed haha
You are correct my friend
Harvester of Sorrow took us a while to get down from start to finish. We rocked it at our senior picnic in 99'. Wish I had video.
I was thinking of the exact riff you cover here - I still struggle with it now!
And James plays those riffs for 2 to 3 hours a night while singing. What a Legend!
It's weird how people struggle with certain riffs compared to other riffs. I never had trouble with Metal Militia. When I was a teenager I learned how to play every single Metallica song on their first 7 albums! First I learned all the rhythm parts. When i started on the solos, the first solos I learned were the first 2 in Fade To Black and Welcome Home (Sanitarium) because they sounded so beautiful to me. Love Kirk Hammett!
Kirk isn't treated fairly in guitar circles, lol. Yeah he's sloppy now but he was awesome in his prime.
intro solo of fade to black was the first one I learned as well.
@@hmpz36911 I agree! It’s an absolute disgrace how Kirk it treated and talked about. No guitarist has written more solos that I love than Kirk. I have nothing but love and respect for him!
I always found jump in the fire to be weird. Probably bc Dave wrote it and it's a different feel than typical Metallica.
I use Jump in the Fire sped up as a warm up it’s great for string jumps and overall getting your fingers warmed up
Dope video brother. It was cool relating to you as a player. Daves the shit.👍🏼🤘🏼😎
Phantom Lord is so fun to play and my favorite early Tune. that's kind of awesome that you used to basically "sweep" pick the notes when you were younger, great early practice without knowing it!
The 2 songs that came to my mind are Blackened and Metal Militia. Blackened is pretty fast to downpick and especially the couple notes on the first 3 frets are oddly complicated to me. Metal Militia just has such weird timings that I struggle to not be super sloppy playing it.
the riff that breaks me is "unforgiven II" hands down. "blackened" is achievable if i practice the speed but man i have no idea how James does "unforgiven II" let alone sing while doing so
well, on the record he uses a B bend guitar. hehe. Now live he does a weird slide to cover for the lack of that guitar.
Very good breakdown
Disposable Heroes and Junp in the. Fire always stumped me when I was first starting guitar.
Hardest riff has got to be the one in Frayed Ends after the drum break. Either that or maybe I'm making it harder than it actually is lol
Haven't watched through it, but I was practicing Metal Militia earlier today and that verse riff got me. Maybe it's just me being a beginner, but I can do Creeping Death's hammer-on section fine. (Even though hammer-ons are easy at least that's what my uncle says LOL.) But yeah, Metal Militia is my pick.
That guitar sounds Fcking awesome man. Absolutely love that sound.
The tail end of the main blackened riff with that open E . Still gets me lol
Man, as a massive 'Deth fan, having you suggesting the trickiest Metallica riff is a Mustaine riff from a Mustaine song is gonna light some fire :) Dave's riffs are insane anyway, and there is a lot in his own back catalog (and most recent) to qualify as "playing it forever, not getting it right..." For me though, one of the trickiest 'Tallica riffs was "disposable heroes"..Pretty basic, BUT it took me a few good weeks to built the stamina needed to make it through the whole 7 minutes of gagagagagagagaga.... :)
Once again, Dave Mustaine held the answers to life's greatest questions.
Great video, the concert where they had Dave was the 30th anniversary
haha great
I am struggling at the exact same point as well and find it so hard
glad I am not the only one, makes me so happy
It must be something from AJFA album, must be.
Ohh man I really thought that I'm a biggest fan of Metallica but wow, you are my man!!
Thanks for great content and inspiration to pick up dusty guitar!!!
Now play Take No Prisoners
Bro I’m so glad someone finally mentioned Fight fire with Fire… every metallica riff video just breezes passed it
Thinking back on my early days of just to where I was good enough to practice them I still have to say for me it is a toss up between Dyers Eve, and Damage inc. Maybe it was a speed thing combined with the timing, but for me it was those two unless I am forgetting one, but I think those were the ones. Great video, man. I love the sound you have for this video. The distortion is perfect!
At this point I'm convinced that only Het knows how to play the Dyers Eve riff correctly. My vote goes to Fight Fire With Fire.
For me its definitely the Blackened main riff. The crazy down picking then the tail in a whole different time signature with a reverse gallop.
Have you seen Mike's video on that 'alternate dimension' part of Blackened? I recommend you watch it because it finally made it clear to me what I had to do to play it correctly, which was - nothing, just keep playing it the same.
post chorus riff in motorbreath is hella tricky but i got, but teaching my friend play it made me realise that its very tricky
I love the sound quality in your videos ! so rich in bass and clear and well mixed.
"The Dave Mustaine way is the way to go." This is ALWAYS true when it comes to guitar.
This is the the greatest sentence I've ever read... megadeth is basically my life. 🤘
Dave is a legend. Dave is modern metal. James may be the lyricist.... Dave was the metal. And I'm a huge Metallica fan.
great tone btw!
Ha ha... that was my exact pick 😆but not just the riff you played but the intro alternate picking part as well (at least for me) the power chord after the alternate picking is an upstroke. It took me ages to get it.
Battery Interlude 2/Outro Riff is so difficult, I can't get %100 speed. The 0's at E string are so hard at speed to get for me :D. Now I am continuing watching the video, see if it was that.
Holy shit that tone is spot on for all your examples.
Frayed Ends of Sanity, the bridge before the solo, and even the rhythm section is crazy.
The timing on Eye of the Beholder on the prechorus has always been my nemesis.
You did great on those riffs. I can play all of those too but one I can't get down (so far) is the rhythm guitar parts after the harmony, before the lead & during the lead in The Frayed ends of Sanity. Try that & you might have to make a new video of the hardest to play.
The beginning riff to Blackened (the one just after the backwards intro) would be my guess. It took me a very long time to get that one down! The trick is to place your pick between the low E and A and alternate pick those two beginning notes. For the rest of the song, play it with all downpicking, just like they do, live. Downpicking as fast as them, however, is a very difficult skill to master. You need a lot of patience if you want to learn to play that one correctly.
Here's my hardest Metallica riffs
5: MoP main riff
4: FFWF main riff section 2
3: Blackened main riff
2: Damage Inc bridge
1: Disposable Heroes main riff
Some of these arent too hard to play alone, but up to tempo with precise rhythm is a nightmare.
Damage Inc. is my favorite song of theirs, of all time, period. It’s got THEE most hardcore riff that’s ever been invented, bar none. It’s also probably their most underrated song of all time.
on the youtube kirk lesson of master of puppets, he plays the spider riffs sweeping the notes on the a string. i also noticed he does that on the blackened intro riff
I love justice. Definitely my favorite album from them.
Niceee I got it right!! I totally always felt that was very intricate to play
The tone you used or this is AMAZING! May I asked what did you use? Thanks! \m/
A riff that was very hard for me is in Master of Puppets after the solo, right before coming back to the verse. Took me a long time to get from all downstrokes on the E to a faster alternate picking on the E before starting going up on the notes, if that makes sense
The Damage Inc break down riff is one I always play when testing guitar sounds because of the fast alternating between scratching on E and the open notes on the A string
fight fire with fire for sure
even in guitar hero strumming that paddle to the beat taught me how to strum irl haha
Your guitar tone is beautiful
My bass player suggested we do Disposable Heroes recently. I had a hearty laugh. I've made it through that song all the way maybe 5 times in the near 40 years I've been playing.
I'd say that bridge in the frayed ends of sanity is pretty tough... also the main groove in shortest straw screws my right hand up a little bit, but all in all I kinda agree with your selection, that bridge in damage inc took me a while too
The turnaround riff on Blackened is bonkers. It's like a tongue-twister but for your fingers and and right hand.
This is the exact awkward part I was confused with yesterday. I couldn't decide which way to pick it. So many choices.